beyond the average. And for work requiring skill, brains, close
application, strength, and severe bodily exertion, such, for instance,
as that involved in operating a well run steam hammer doing
miscellaneous work, from 80 per cent to 100 per cent beyond the average.

There are plenty of good men ready to do their best for the above
percentages of increase, but if the endeavor is made to get the right
men to work at this maximum for less than the above increase, it will be
found that most of them will prefer their old rate of speed with the
lower pay. After trying the high speed piece work for a while they will
one after another throw up their jobs and return to the old day work
conditions. Men will not work at their best unless assured a good
liberal increase, which must be permanent.

It is the writer's judgment, on the other hand, that for their own good
it is as important that workmen should not be very much over-paid, as it
is that they should not be under-paid. If over-paid, many will work
irregularly and tend to become more or less shiftless, extravagant, arid
dissipated. It does not do for most men to get rich too fast. The
writer's observation, however, would lead him to the conclusion that
most men tend to become more instead of less thrifty when they receive
the proper increase for an extra hard day's work, as, for example, the
percentages of increase referred to above. They live rather better,
begin to save money, become more sober, and work more steadily. And this
certainly forms one of the strongest reasons for advocating this type of
management.

In referring to high wages and low labor cost as fundamental in good
management, the writer is most desirous not to be misunderstood.